Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2012-12-09 04:13 pm
tenlittlebullets) wrote2012-12-09 04:13 pm
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AAAAAAA *spins in meta-tastic circles* aaaaaaaaaaaa
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kouredios: Jacob's recap of Doctor Who series 3, courtesy Television Without Pity. Is this just... a thing that everyone else already saw back in 2007 and I am just late on the bandwagon as usual? Has everyone else already had their mind blown by it? Because... BOOM.
I wouldn't even call it a review or a recap. It's meta. It's analysis. It's standing at the end of series 3 and going through each and every episode to examine it in the light of the finale and the whole season arc. Not only is this guy's brain super-tasty, he gets the way RTD writes: by layering. RTD's absolute favorite thing to do ever is to take a theme, a situation, a line of dialogue, that seemed like a throwaway gag the first time you watched it, but then a season and a half later you go to rewatch that episode for shits and giggles and end up going holy fuck. (My favorite example of this is from Dalek: "Is that the end of it? The Time War?" "I'm the only one left. I win. How about that." Let's play spot how many times those lines reappear, each with a more horrifying twist than the last.) He reuses things with a twist; he has a bunch of themes that play out in full in the series finale, but he makes sure that every monster-of-the-week episode contains a subset of those themes in miniature, or as a mirror image, or rearranged or turned inside-out to examine them from a different angle. (Jacob uses the term "isomorphisms," which... yes.)
The thing that's making me go "AAAAAAAAAAA," though, is that Jacob is looking at s3 the same way I do and zeroing in on completely different things. And articulating exactly what is going on there in a way that I am bad at. I mean, Runaway Bride? I would've gone straight for the sham marriage the Racnoss makes Donna and Lance act out, her macabre "go on, laugh, it's funny" routine, Lance casting his lot in with the Racnoss because humanity looks so puny to him and he wants a shot at the exact wrong kind of "something more", Donna weeping over the meaninglessness of her life on her first time-travel jaunt and the Doctor reassuring her that humans are amazing because they try to bring order, however trivial or arbitrary, to make sense of the chaos. In my head, that is a massive wibbly-wobbly ball of significance that's all tied up with the Master, Lucy Saxon, the Untempered Schism, and the end of the universe. But I can't untangle it or make it go in a straight line. Jacob, though, goes straight for a completely different moment of wedding imagery, and manages to lay out something I'd never even considered: "She was getting [the huon particles] in her coffee, and they can't be biodamped by a simple ring. Which is to say, the thing she thought would make her special is now the thing that can't stop her from being special. Which is to say, she's not a replacement Companion; she's a mirror: The Last Of The Singletons, so desperate to hear those four little words that she can't see the danger signs. So afraid of being alone."
And... AAAAAAAAAA. The "forests/trees" metaphor had me nonplussed at first, and then... bam. It just sort of--slots together two of the biggest things happening in s3, the tension between individual and community and the tension between the Doctor as a man and the Doctor as a god. And gets at the paradox between them. It--oh, just read it. *flaps hands*
I mean, there are things I don't quite agree with (though I have a couple pages of it left to go, which I have not read yet because my internet has gone wobbly). The Tinkerbell Jesus bits in particular make me go "okay, I think that's more or less what RTD was going for, but this still makes me deeply uncomfortable because Ten makes for a shit-tastic Jesus, he has zero right to forgive on behalf of all humanity, and the implication that humanity has somehow redeemed itself by praying to him is gross." I've always felt that Last of the Time Lords has the bones of a good story, it just botches its big moment with awful execution and sets everything else retroactively awry; perhaps the thing it needs is a more explicit acknowledgement that the Doctor isn't the savior of humanity here, he's the one being saved.
(elisi, have you read this thing? It's also full of "The Hollow Men.")
kouredios: Jacob's recap of Doctor Who series 3, courtesy Television Without Pity. Is this just... a thing that everyone else already saw back in 2007 and I am just late on the bandwagon as usual? Has everyone else already had their mind blown by it? Because... BOOM.I wouldn't even call it a review or a recap. It's meta. It's analysis. It's standing at the end of series 3 and going through each and every episode to examine it in the light of the finale and the whole season arc. Not only is this guy's brain super-tasty, he gets the way RTD writes: by layering. RTD's absolute favorite thing to do ever is to take a theme, a situation, a line of dialogue, that seemed like a throwaway gag the first time you watched it, but then a season and a half later you go to rewatch that episode for shits and giggles and end up going holy fuck. (My favorite example of this is from Dalek: "Is that the end of it? The Time War?" "I'm the only one left. I win. How about that." Let's play spot how many times those lines reappear, each with a more horrifying twist than the last.) He reuses things with a twist; he has a bunch of themes that play out in full in the series finale, but he makes sure that every monster-of-the-week episode contains a subset of those themes in miniature, or as a mirror image, or rearranged or turned inside-out to examine them from a different angle. (Jacob uses the term "isomorphisms," which... yes.)
The thing that's making me go "AAAAAAAAAAA," though, is that Jacob is looking at s3 the same way I do and zeroing in on completely different things. And articulating exactly what is going on there in a way that I am bad at. I mean, Runaway Bride? I would've gone straight for the sham marriage the Racnoss makes Donna and Lance act out, her macabre "go on, laugh, it's funny" routine, Lance casting his lot in with the Racnoss because humanity looks so puny to him and he wants a shot at the exact wrong kind of "something more", Donna weeping over the meaninglessness of her life on her first time-travel jaunt and the Doctor reassuring her that humans are amazing because they try to bring order, however trivial or arbitrary, to make sense of the chaos. In my head, that is a massive wibbly-wobbly ball of significance that's all tied up with the Master, Lucy Saxon, the Untempered Schism, and the end of the universe. But I can't untangle it or make it go in a straight line. Jacob, though, goes straight for a completely different moment of wedding imagery, and manages to lay out something I'd never even considered: "She was getting [the huon particles] in her coffee, and they can't be biodamped by a simple ring. Which is to say, the thing she thought would make her special is now the thing that can't stop her from being special. Which is to say, she's not a replacement Companion; she's a mirror: The Last Of The Singletons, so desperate to hear those four little words that she can't see the danger signs. So afraid of being alone."
And... AAAAAAAAAA. The "forests/trees" metaphor had me nonplussed at first, and then... bam. It just sort of--slots together two of the biggest things happening in s3, the tension between individual and community and the tension between the Doctor as a man and the Doctor as a god. And gets at the paradox between them. It--oh, just read it. *flaps hands*
I mean, there are things I don't quite agree with (though I have a couple pages of it left to go, which I have not read yet because my internet has gone wobbly). The Tinkerbell Jesus bits in particular make me go "okay, I think that's more or less what RTD was going for, but this still makes me deeply uncomfortable because Ten makes for a shit-tastic Jesus, he has zero right to forgive on behalf of all humanity, and the implication that humanity has somehow redeemed itself by praying to him is gross." I've always felt that Last of the Time Lords has the bones of a good story, it just botches its big moment with awful execution and sets everything else retroactively awry; perhaps the thing it needs is a more explicit acknowledgement that the Doctor isn't the savior of humanity here, he's the one being saved.
(
elisi, have you read this thing? It's also full of "The Hollow Men.")
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(Hopefully I'll have time to read it... at Christmas? ::hides from busy life::)
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And more or less busy in a good way, Christmas cards apart.
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Jacob has a bit of a ~reputation, even over here. It wouldn't surprise me if you've heard of him. He writes some just gorgeous stuff, right up to the point when you want to strangle him. And he kinda went off the cliff a couple years ago. Definitely worth reading, but if you start getting twitchy at any point, leave--it's not you, it's him. Beware of Mark Watches flashbacks.
He was the official recapper for BSG back in the day, and his recaps were like works of art. I almost looked forward to them more than the episode. When I got into Moff Who and found out he was going to be the recapper for that as well, I was so excited. That went badly. Really badly.
Rusty Who seems to agree with him a lot more, though. His RTD reviews didn't really grab me, but I sure recognize the excitement in this post and would recommend reading.
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LOL, I'm the opposite--ten million plotbunnies, but turning them into fic is like pulling teeth. Meanwhile, hand me the slightest pretext to meta and zoom, off I go.